Jeff Tian's Research in UI/UX: Usability Evaluation and Improvement

My research in this area concentrates on effective models and techniques
that not only help us evaluate the usability of interactive systems
from a user's perspective but also improve
usability and user experience (UI/UX improvement).
My research in UI/UX covers the following topics:

Problems identification and usability improvement:

We developed a new method to identify usability problems based
on comparing actual and anticipated usage patterns.
The actual usage patterns were extracted from server logs
to identify users, user sessions, and user task-oriented transactions,
and then applying a usage-mining algorithm to discover patterns
among actual usage paths.
The anticipated usage was specified by cognitive experts.
The comparison yield deviation data that can help us
discover usability issues and suggest corrective actions.
The usability improvement was quantified by the higher task
success rate and lower time and effort for given tasks
after suggested corrections were implemented.
A software tool was developed to automate a significant
part of the activities involved.
This research is summarized in the following paper:

Maintaining accurate usage models:

Markov operational profile (OP) is
a type of usage models for interactive applications and their UI
that can help us ensure and maximize product reliability and usability.
This project was successful at maintaining accurate Markov OP
during system maintenance and evolution using updates derived
from existing task models for UI design or
activity diagrams for UI/system implementation.
This research is summarized in the following papers:

Resolving usability issues in safety-critical systems:

Failures in software related safety-critical systems
could result in disastrous accidents.
Usability plays a significant role in such safety-critical systems,
where interface, interaction, or usability problems can
be contributing factors or even main causes for accidents.
In this study, we developed a comprehensive classification and
analysis framework to analyze and resolve usability issues
in safety-critical systems.
Prepared by Jeff Tian
(tian@engr.smu.edu).
Last update: Nov. 6, 2018.